Luke is 4 months old!

Time is flying by! I cannot believe that Luke is already 4 months old. He is such a happy baby. He smiles all the time and only cries when he is hungry or tired and even then it is more fussing than crying. He started sleeping through the night on September 20th when he was just over 4 months old. He rolled over from his back to his tummy today for the first time (9/29/09)! He eats cereal once a day but the jury is still out on whether or not he likes it. He still refuses to take the bottle and will hold out until I give in and give him the real thing..... Kyla is a terrific big sister and loves her little brother very much. We are very blessed.

Luke Is 3 Months & Kyla Celebrated Her 2nd Birthday

Once again, we have been very bad about keeping up with our blog. It is crazy how busy you are with two kiddos. Luke turned 3 months on August 11th and Kyla celebrated her 2nd birthday on August 29th. She had a great time at her party at Stomping Grounds Playland with her friend Jackson who turned 2 the day before her. She was so cute. She kept "chasing" Jackson to try to sit next to him or hug him and he would run away. Hopefully this trend will not continue into her teenage years....

Kyla also started a Mother's Day Out program on Fridays from 9-2:30. She absolutely LOVES it! She wakes up every morning and asks me, "Mommy, sool day?" Unlike most kids who cry when their parents drop them off, she cries when I pick her up. Too bad it would cost too much to send her everyday. I hope she keeps up this love for school well into young adulthood!

Luke is 2 months old already....

We are going to have to retrain her what Luke's age is every month now!

Don't you hate it when your collar is off-center and your undershirt is overexposed on one side? I thought wives are supposed to make sure that their husbands are presentable for photos.

At my cousin Coyle's wedding in San Antonio. It was a bald usher only wedding. (Clockwise from left: Chaz, Kristie, Michael, Luke, Richard, Kyla, Roxanne)

Omie (approx. 91) used to drink Pearl Light beer....as a child I used to remember seeing it in her refrigerator. I asked her if they still made it or if she had drank it recently...she hadn't seen it in years. $6.73 at HEB gets you a 12-pack of the swill....but it also gets you unprecendented bonding time with your grandmother and a great photo.

Luke is being indoctrinated into the Pearl Light family tradition

Luke is starting to get it....the cuter you look, the more chick's say, "awwww"

Luke's birth, Luke's Baptism, one month....we're lazy

Okay, so we are REALLY behind on updating the blog. Life with two kids (especially a newborn) allows for very little spare time so please forgive us for not updating this sooner.

CHILD 2 of 2.3

This yarn hat makes Luke look like he could audition as a mushroom baby on one of those silly Anne Geddes albums

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PICTURE IS GRAPHIC IN NATURE

If any of you were wondering why there were not liberal with distributing pictures of Luke during his first few hours of life, this is why. It looked as though the doctor and birth canal acted like a bouncer at a club on the little guy. One of the nurses even commented that such bruising would definitely result in jaundice. Kristie's OBGYN was later rumored to have said that Luke won the award for most battered at birth that she had ever seen.

Sure enough, we found ourselves back in the hospital for 2 special nights. The little man had to live under some special lights to fight the jaundice he faced.

Jaundice, also known as icterus (attributive adjective: icteric), is a yellowish discoloration of the skin, the conjunctival membranes over thesclerae (whites of the eyes), and other mucous membranes caused by hyperbilirubinemia (increased levels of bilirubin in the blood). This hyperbilirubinemia subsequently causes increased levels of bilirubin in the extracellular fluids.

(In case you were wondering)

The happy new family of 4. The verdict was still out on Kyla's happiness, but she started warming up quickly to her little brother. Kyla is probably bent that her blog appearances will be dramatically reduced (by percentage) now that Luke is here.

Opa and Oma had a much shorter journey to see their grandson than they did their granddaughter. Opa is pleased that his sur name has made its way to another generation.

Nana and Grandpa George also came to town to welcome Luke. Nana stayed for about 3 weeks. Kyla seemed convinced that she had become a permanent fixture in the house and was disappointed when she left.

Mimi and Grandpa Jack holding Luke on his big Baptism day.

Papa and Cici also on hand...

Everybody's here....yay! I am somewhat frustrated right now as Luke is boiling here next to me....it makes wrting on the blog somewhat difficult. Btw, the couple with us are Luke's Godparents, his Uncle Ricky and Aunt Karena.

It took some big legs to cover that up.

"I'm so glad that I am projected at #2 in the nation for my iaugural football season". (At least one of my teams is.....)

"Why is there so much pink crap in my life again"?

I have this picture of Luke in my car by all the gauges under the dash board. The heat is already starting to make it curl so I am constantly rotating it and hiding it in the console to see how long I can keep him colorful.

Welcome to your new bed, where there will be no funny-business taking place. Go ahead, practice that air guitar....it's your new home and your new life. We have so much to do together!

Talking, Talking and More Talking

I just had to share some of the new things Kyla is saying these days.

She talks non-stop!  Some of her new phrases are:  (about the ball) "kick it" and "bounce it". 

She loves to sit at her little table and color none other than Mickey Mouse (of course) but while she is sitting there she wants someone to be sitting next to her, be it, Mommy, Daddy, Melissa, or her baby doll.  To request this she says, "Mommy sit chair" as she so adorably pats the other chair.  

Another favorite phrase of mine is when she is hungry.  She says, "eat food".  You'd have to hear it yourself to understand how cute it really is.  She tends to say this anytime we drive past an establishment that remotely resembles a restaurant.

She can count all the way to 10 now!  

One of her favorite words to say is "fork".  Unfortunately, about 90% of the time it comes out sounding more like fu**.  This isn't embarrassing at all when you are in Walmart with her and she sees some forks and starts yelling out what sounds to be an obscenity!

That's all for now. 

Covert Blog Posting - Luke's Life

This is the first time I have ever ventured onto this blog on my own to post anything without the urging of the wife.  I put the over/under on her discovering this at 3.5 hours.  

Prior to giving birth, some people don't choose names for their babies.  Some don't learn their sex. Some don't even decorate their newborn's rooms.  Not only do we know Luke's birthday (assuming he doesn't go beyond 38 weeks), but his baptism date is set, his room is completely decorated, he has a specific outfit purchased for a photo shoot in AUGUST, and I have already got him enrolled in Little League for 2016.

At this moment, I am not 100% certain that I know what I am going to be doing in 5 minutes and this kid has the next 22 years already etched in stone.  Here is a rundown of Luke's life in brief as it's already been figured out:

Welcome to the world Luke!!  You are so adorable! Once mommy explains everything to me, I will love you like you are my own.

This is the time that you are going to take crayons to the wall (yes, wallpaper will be popular again soon).  More than likely, this will just be some obscure cry for help as the second child.  

I did this fancy thing where the words are to the right of the picture and not above it.  So I am really just trying to take up space within the next several lines to make things look a little better.

I hope I do not get into any sort of trouble by scouring the internet for pictures of little children.

This is the window that you are going to break when you are practicing your golf swing in the backyard on October 11, 2015.  Your mom is going to be pissed that I wasn't making you use plastic golf balls in the back yard.  Do you think Tiger Woods used plastic golf balls?  I didn't think so....

Haha!  We are going to remember the time that you are going to take Mommy's car out for a joy ride....oh that's going to be a fun phone call for you.  My advice is that you at least pretend to be shaken up or mildly injured.  There is a fine line between concern and "going apeshit" for parents in situations like this.

Oh well, that's all I've got for now.  I guess the point of all this was really to tell you that we've got everything ready for our new addition.  We can't wait!  (as demonstrated by the bottle of formula already mixed and ready to go in the fridge)

All we need is a baby.....

We cut it kind of close to complete Luke's nursery....upon completion of his room, he was a scant 8 weeks from being born.




Here's how these blogs work. Kristie takes the pictures. They sit on our camera for 2-4 weeks. Kristie posts a quick sampling of the pictures on this blog. Kristie then tells me daily for 8-12 days that I need to update the blog with captions. I finally add captions after a glass or 3 of wine. Repeat. Every now and then she will get tired of me not adding text and she will post the pictures with her own words. I usually read it and get fed up so it motivates me.




But the problem is that I get to pictures like this and don't know what I can say. Okay, here is a dresser in Luke's room that doubles as a changing table. It looks good. I had nothing to do with color selection. The walls are light blue. Kristie actually made the liners for those baskets on the right....she's crafty. On the wall is a painted map thing of the U.S. I noticed the other day that only two states are true rectangles....neither of which rhyme with "Dakota".



The site of many future slumber parties involving a parent, a newborn, a bottle and possibly some vomit/poopie.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Brought to you in part by a blog that seldom has pictures of people over the age of 2.

Not sure why this picture made the cut for our Easter blog. It is basically just Kyla facing off with a child proof gate at Mimi's house.


What's this??? A different toddler girl made the blog? Brooke, Abby and John joined us for Easter lunch. Friends and family mix; world's collide on Easter!


Our little girl has long fingers = She's going to be a pianist

Out little boy will have longer fingers = Um....yeah


You may ask what happened since the Valentine's cookie episode that made Kyla so calm and compliant during the Easter cookie making. I ask, "when did we start baking cookies for Valentine's Day and Easter"?

Another holiday, another grownup in a costume to frighten our daughter. I think we qualify for "Parent of the Year" award for actually putting her back on Mr. Bunny's lap so we could get a better picture of Kyla's joy.

Cute Picture #1 that I can't think of anything clever to describe it with

Cute Picture #2 that I can't think of anything clever to describe it with

Kyla and her two good friends, Celia and Brooke

Luke: 28 weeks gestation

Below are the first pictures of Luke. Dude was not very cooperative on our initial visit to the 3D ultrasound place, so he required a second non-invasive imaging procedure (free of charge).

Kyla is our "little princess"...that name just came naturally. Luke's nickname hasn't yet come to me yet. And the nominees are....

a) Slugger
b) Champ
c) Pimp
d) Dude
e) Sport
f) Tri-pod

The winner will be announced some time in June, 2009.

(note the backward "hook 'em" gesture in the first picture)